To Americans Canada is like that cousin who lives outside the city and sadly doesn't have access to the same great things as you. In Canada we once longed for Target and TiVo now we have those 'great' things and more. Sadly the Google Chromebook is skipping us on it's initial launch in favour of more European markets. That's ok, but that's the way it is and once that's the way it was with everything. The iPhone didn't come here for at least a year after its launch in the United States. Canadians have long made trips across the southern border to acquire some of those things that aren't available in Canada. Whether it's Trader Joe's or Duty-Free liquor, which happens to be 25-50% cheaper.

This post isn't about that inequality it's about the inequality presented by our archaic, controlling, short-sighted telecommunications providers. "The Cartel" as we call them are Bell, Rogers and Telus. There are a few larger regional players (Quebecor and Shaw), but for the purposes of this post let's focus on the offerings of the big three. Many people globally have long been downloaders of content that they cannot otherwise access whether because they lack Cable TV or the content isn't available in their country. Most of these people want to pay for that content they want to ensure that those that create the things we enjoy receive funding to continue to create that content, but content distribution is the bottleneck in viewers ability to do that.

Hulu and Netflix have been creating strong digital content distribution channels in the US for years. Netflix in Canada is like dial-up internet compared to Netflix in the US which is comparatively like ultra-fast internet connections of today. Our Netflix has almost zero new content and when movies come their either from the archives are straight to DVD. Yes there are the rare high production value films in there, but it's nothing compared to what is available in the US. This is only the start of the problems presented by the current structure of the cartel's telecommunications Oligopoly in Canada. In the next part of this 3 series we'll get into the trenches on state of web TV in Canada.